Small Christian Community SCC Model

04-16-2017Weekly ReflectionFr. Francisco 'Bing' Colasito

The idea of building Small Christian Communities SCC or Basic Ecclesial Communities BEC started immediately after the Second Vatican Council. Vatican II is the catalyst of the universal movement of a church model organized into SCC/BEC. Envisioned in the conciliar documents is a renewed church through the SCC. The formation of SCC movement is regarded as the concrete realization of the communitarian model of the Church (A Church of Community of Communities) envisioned and promoted by the Second Vatican Council. The conciliar ideas attributed to directly promote a church of communities like the SCC were as follows:

  • The emphasis in the communitarian model of the church 
  • The active participation of the laity in the life and mission of the church 
  • The liturgical reforms that actively promotes greater participation of the community

With the spirit of the aggiornamento still very strong in the Church immediately after Vatican II, many Bishops, Priest and Religious started to consider new pastoral approaches and strategies. It became the period that encouraged greater pastoral and liturgical explorations.

Updated Mission messages and methodologies in the light of Vatican II were proposed, some of the important changes were:

  • Formation of leaders in the area of evangelization became a necessity, leaders who themselves became evangelizers (e.g. Parish Formation Team PFT) 
  • Adaptation to the local circumstances, taking into account the temperament of the people 
  • Mission message emphasis was on the instruction of the faith and the positive elements of the Christian life 
  • Individual conversion was an integral part of the community life 
  • Emphasis on the community dimension of the Christian Life

The emergence of SCC in the church effected a renewed vigor in the Church; some observations were noticed in Dioceses with the Church modeled as Community of Communities. 

  • Churches flourished wherever SCC where established and the formation of leaders were adopted as a pastoral program in the diocese or in the parish. 
  • SCC grew from the existing sociological and parochial structures. 
  • While members of the SCC and formation leaders were all coming from the laity, these communities were organized under the initiative and full support of the Parish Priest. 
  • The formation of leaders was in four areas, spiritual, intellectual, social and practical to prepare them to help build the SCC, further they were trained to become liturgical leaders.

More than fifty years later, the realization of a Church of Community of Communities, a neighborhood church is still a dream in many Catholic churches around the world. Here at St. Rose, we have started to sow the seed of this kind of Model of the Church. The formal formation of leaders, Parish Formation Teams PFT ended last Dec. 2016, but the practical formation and immersion into small communities is an on-going formation. There is so much to learn, embrace the vision of a Church of communities, embrace Jesus in the midst of the SCC, live and love by Jesus’ Words of Life – but more importantly, like Jesus who formed the first Community of the Apostles and the Apostles building different communities, we commit ourselves to building of Community of God’s people.

Be in God,

Fr. Bing

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